Quelques jours en septembre

An American spy, named Elliot who possesses very secret pieces of information, give an appointment in Paris to three people that are his daughter Orlando that he has not seen since ten years, his adopted child, David and a female faithful friend who has formerly worked with him, Irene. But an implacable killer, William Pound, is pursuing him, and the meeting has to be deleted and transferred to Venice where will be the dramatic ending. This movie is very well acted, particularly by Juliette Binoche and the atmosphere is very interesting. The only reproach I can do is that the director uses too much the same proceeding for the photographic effects, such blurred image. It seems that the movie will not be seen on television set or CD.

Other than good performances from Juliette Binoche, Sara Forestier and the likable newcomer Tom Riley, this movie doesn't have much to recommend it. Aiming to be a "metaphoric" spy movie about the evils of secrecy and the wounds of childhood, the film fails for having plot devices instead of characters and a sloppy, unconvincing direction, resulting in an overall bore. We are also treated with highly annoying anti-American propaganda. Nick Nolte pops up in the last ten minutes like a poor man's Colonel Kurtz but his appearance comes too late to wake up the movie. For works playing successfully playing with the thriller genre, try some of Paul Austers'books or Wim Wenders'earlier films instead. Skip this one.

Reviewers talk quirky, but offering a different view of an event in September 2001 has to take a roundabout journey to give space for us to rethink events we regard as given. This is not about what the old generation can teach the new - it's about the shifting power balance in the world, a confidence that is about to slip like a picture gone out of focus, a few days before September 11. Through a glass darkly, we feel the imminent change about to happen, the jockeying for position between old, new and confused, but the viewers' foreknowledge gives the plot line extra significance and meaning that would make it otherwise a spy chase thriller and not much more. How often do you see on modern films the kinds of discussions that are in this film? A European perspective, a new kind of world, where even the chauvinist French drive German cars,and the American Empire is given twenty years to live. More films need to be made that explore the truth, separate the paranoid from the conspiratorial, the kooky from the careful look. This films does the latter - thanks to masterful casting and,ahem,unorthodox execution. Binoche has given a sophisticated performance.

Despite a very good cast and a clever idea, this film never happened. The acting was good but the director was self-indulgent with his filming technique.

The film was slow and built no tension, and by time Nick Nolte arrived, the film had already died on its backside. The film wasted time on juvenile political discussion. I literally thought that the American boy would accuse the French girl as being a cheese eating surrender monkey, but of course they just fall in love! Every single role was unoriginal from John Turtoro's poetry reading psycho to Juliet Binoche's cool french spy. Given such an important political possibility, the film said absolutely nothing.

This is another film stultified by self-conscious direction and faddish photography. I have had enough of blurry, shaky, false colour cinematography for the rest of my life. Watch a Clint Eastwood directed film and see story-telling, in-focus, at its best. See also The King's Speech for developing characters. A Few Days in September had a good cast with wonderful actors like Binoche and Tuturro, although Binoche was not capitalised. Unlike other reviewers, I found the young people's discourse right on the mark for generation Y. Tuturro's psycho character might be an accurate parallel for what the American state thought was acceptable at the time of the story. Who knows, American international behaviour has been much more bizarre that Tuturro's character at times. Maybe too, a Venetian contact provided the large case and heavy calibre rifle locally rather than has been suggested that it was taken through customs. Despite its serious flaws, I enjoyed the story, and just seeing Binoche a lot in close up, such a wonderful face to photograph. To the director, don't forget that someone has to watch the film and does not need to get irritated by art for art's sake, especially when it "ain't Picasso". The version I saw did not have sub-titles and this hurt the film for me because my other languages are not European or Arabic. I look forward to more of Binoche and Tuturro but not blurred vision. It was not, as Binboche suggested, another way of looking at things.